Tell me which of your kids made the honor roll. Tell me about your trip to Belize. Tell me that, believe it or not, your oldest is off to college. Tell me that your basement flooded and you had to replace the carpet and the baseboards, but all is well because your parents’ wedding album was stored on a high shelf and was spared any water damage.

I want to hear it all. I want the stories to spill forth in sentences and paragraphs that dance across an entire page and invite me to pause. To have a seat. To listen to the voice I’m holding in my hand.

I recently finished Sally Field’s memoir, “In Pieces” (it’s fantastic; would make a great gift), and so much of her stitching together the pieces of her life relies on letters. Letters from Aunt Betty. Letters from her grandmother to her mother. Letters between her mother and her stepfather. Letters that her father wrote to her. Letters, sometimes, that she couldn’t bear to open and read until years after they landed in her possession.

I couldn’t help but wonder, as I read her book, whether such memoirs will soon become a relic of the past. What will we use to stitch together our stories, now that we so rarely, outside of the holidays, write letters?

Old Facebook posts? Texts?

I had the chance to interview Field when she came to Chicago, and I asked her about our fading loyalty to letters. She said that as her mother got older, they communicated much more through email than through letters. And she said she made a point to print the emails she thought would hold meaning down the road.

Her mom passed away in 2011.

“I’m so glad I have those notes to physically hold,” Field said. “Even if they’re not in my mother’s hand.” (Meaning handwriting.)

That’s it, I think. The physicality.

The holiday letters are never handwritten, but I cherish them anyway. They’re on paper. They arrive in envelopes. I can fold them up and save them to read again later.

They are, in their own way, a little gift. They arrive. You unwrap them. They slow you down in a season when everything, everyone is rushing you along.

This year they will also be my inspiration.

This year, I vow to write letters to include with the gifts I give. Some will be longer than others, but each will be long enough to say: Hang on. Pause. I want to tell you something — about what you mean to me, about something I love, about something I remember, about something I cherish.

So many of the gifts I buy, especially for my kids, lack permanence. My kids barely remember them the next month, let alone the next year. Shopkins blur into Legos blur into Rainbow Looms blur into fidget spinners blur into Skylanders.

You know how it goes.

You rush to just the right store/website/soul-killing mall, hope you can find just the right goodies, hope you haven’t overbought/underbought, hope you don’t lose the gift receipts, hope your credit card doesn’t burst into actual flame, hope the kids go to sleep soon so you can lovingly wrap all the goodies, hope it’s all meaningful enough, joyful enough, enough enough.

And then, in a blur of gift wrap and Scotch tape and coffee it’s over.

It’s not over. You have all the parts of the holiday that don’t revolve around gift-getting and gift-receiving. The parts, of course, that matter the most.

But maybe there’s a way to make the gifts matter a little more too. And last a little longer too. Maybe that way is to add letters.

This year I’m going to try.

Will my kids remember my letters? Will anyone? I don’t know. Will they save them? I don’t know. But I’ll pause to write them. And I’ll ask them to pause to read them.

And even that — that pause, those moments — can be a gift.

Join the Heidi Stevens Balancing Act Facebook group, where she hosts live chats every Wednesday at noon. This week she’ll be joined by her husband, Tribune film critic Michael Phillips, to talk about keeping complicated schedules from harming a marriage.

Ever find yourself scrolling through home-rental websites, day dreaming of a staycation or weekend getaway? Maybe you've flagged them with a heart or bookmark, saving them for easy viewing later when you're ready to book. We asked Airbnb about the most commonly "wish-listed" homes throughout Chicago. The results range from a Lincoln Park loft to a transformed garden apartment in Little Village and range from $65 to $109 a night. Two of the listings are Airbnb Plus, meaning they've passed an inspection to ensure they meet certain standards.

Although different, each of these rentals has one thing in common: It seems everyone wants to stay for a night.

(Susan Moskop)

Through triumphs and tears, here are 18 folks who inspired Balancing Act columnist Heidi Stevens the most in 2018.